


& that necessary

by novembersmith



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, M/M, Oblivious, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course he’d have his big gay revelation about his former teammate, in Columbus, during the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse. That is the life of Jeff fucking Carter, as fucked up and pathetic as humanly possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	& that necessary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisissirius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/gifts).



> FOR SIRI, ON THE OCCASION OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER BIRTH. I hope that it is an awesome day, and that you enjoy the Sulking Jeff Carter and Long-Suffering Mike Richards (Now With Added Zombies). ♥
> 
> TONS of thanks to everyone who read over this, especially the lovely laliandra, isweedan, and caperg33l, for all their encouragement/cheerleading. And oh man, without the thoughtful and thorough notes from ellot and the amazing red pen of ladybessyboo, this would be a total disaster. All remaining mistakes and errors are mine, not theirs. I've played a little fast and loose with the 2011 season, but just assume this is in early November and call it artistic license. 
> 
> Title from [this poem](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16221), because I couldn't resist.

They’re supposed to Skype in an hour, so it’s weird when Richie calls Jeff’s phone instead. Jeff’s not ready for it—he’s in his blanket nest on the couch, eating a massive bowl of too-sugary cereal for dinner and watching cartoons. For a moment, he panics and forgets that Richie can’t see him over the phone, but whatever, Richie has a weird sixth sense about these things. And it’s not that Jeff would have dressed _up_ for the Skype conversation, but he’d planned to make himself presentable, or at least put on some pants, maybe shower. He splits the difference and hobbles to his feet and takes his Lucky Charms to the kitchen to eat at a table like a fucking adult before calling Richie back.

He starts to say something dumb and projecting along the lines of, “Desperate much,” or “I could have been busy, bro,”—but Richie just cuts him off by saying, “ _Jeff_.”

Jeff’s momentarily speechless. Richie sounds, well. _Really_ not monotone, which makes Jeff feel stupidly warm, but it’s still weird. It’s not like they hadn’t just talked yesterday.

“Where are you?” Richie says, while Jeff’s still blinking, confused and unsure even before this abrupt topic shift. “Are you inside? Get inside. Turn off the lights.”

“I’m home, man, I’m inside,” Jeff says slowly, and absently leans over to hit the kitchen light. He’d been kind of snugged up in his den of misery, he’s not going to lie, so no other lights are on in the house now, except for the silent flicker of the Powerpuff Girls on the TV. “What the fuck, Richie?”

Jeff’s not straight-up concerned, yet—Mike sounds weird, yeah, but he doesn’t sound like he’s in pain or seriously fucked up. Something’s obviously wrong, but Jeff’s already stuck in fucking Ohio. How bad can anything else be?

“You haven’t heard?” Richie’s saying, “I fucking knew you—it’s been all over the news all day, where the fuck have you been?”

“I was busy,” Jeff lies, and scratches under his cast with the handle of his spoon. Ugh, it fucking itches. “What’s on the news?” He’d stuck the remote in the waistband of his boxers when he shuffled into the kitchen, so it’s easy enough to lean out on the chair now and start mashing buttons until he finds the menu screen.

It’s still muted, but the scrolling headlines at the bottom tell the story well enough, and Jeff feels his jaw drop open.

“Is this a joke?” he manages. He’d seen the headlines a couple days back, some junkies hyped up on bath salts in Atlanta, or whatever, but the media loved to run with that shit, and Jeff hadn’t paid much attention. They’d had games to lose, and he’d had Nash to avoid, and pointless hours to fill between his Skype dates—not dates, whatever, he hasn’t come up with a better word yet, but it’s not _dates_ —with Richie.

He flips a couple channels: CNN, MSN, even the fucking Weather Channel. But it’s on all of them.

“It’s pretty bad out here,” Richie says flatly, and Jeff thinks, huh, and stirs his spoon around in the soggy cereal, staring at the melting mass of marshmallows and trying to ignore the insistent panicked rise of his pulse. “But you’re not in the city. You’re in the ‘burbs, right?”

Well, yeah. Jeff hadn’t exactly been planning to soak up the fucking Columbus nightlife. He’d more been planning his extensive hermitage, and that’s what he’d gotten. Lots of hedges and distant neighbors and empty, flat, echoing nothing all around.

“Good. Good, that’s—good.” Richie clears his throat, then says it again. “Good.”

“Oh, is it good?” Jeff says snidely, just to be a dick, and then smiles helplessly, reflexive, when Richie barks out a laugh, hoarse but familiar and genuine.

“Asshole,” Richie says and Jeff can actually hear the fondness in his voice—like Jeff being a whiny loser is something he wants to hear. The world is ending, maybe, but for some reason Jeff’s brain won’t focus on that, keeps going back to the way Mike’s eyebrows draw together when he scowls, the way his lips twitch when he’s trying not to smile.

On the television screen, there are soldiers on the streets of DC, mowing down a shambling herd of politicians and protesters. It’s surreal. Right now, if Jeff listens, he can hear distant sirens from the direction of the city.

He’s going to die. In fucking Ohio. It just fucking figures.

He says as much and Richie retorts immediately, “Shut the fuck up. You’re not,” authoritatively, like he can captain his way out of this shit. “Remember our plan?”

“The plan was for Philadelphia, numbnuts,” Jeff says, and spoons in another bite of mushy cereal into his mouth automatically. He really should get groceries. Or should have. Now he guesses he’ll have to go loot, or something. On his broken foot. Fuck, he thinks, and this time he can’t convince his pulse to stop rising, he feels like it’s choking him, like his heart’s gonna pound out of his chest. He’s so fucking fucked.

“Well, we’re not _in_ fucking Philly,” Richie growls, and then his voice levels out again and Jeff breathes a little easier. “Carts, Cartsy, you gotta listen, you gotta take care of yourself until I get there, promise me, Jeff—”

“Get here?” Jeff says, and he's totally unashamed by how his voice rises. “Mike, you’re in fucking California, you can’t—”

“I’m coming,” Richie says fiercely, and then there’s a sound of shattering glass on his end, and Arnold barking. Jeff’s whole body jerks in response. He bangs his foot and drops the phone and his bowl, and milk splashes wet and loud all across the flood. A shard of porcelain slices his palm as he fumbles after the phone on his hands and knees, but he can’t think about that now. It doesn’t even hurt yet.

“ _Mike_ ,” Jeff says, scrambling to pick the phone back up, frantic, and thinks for the first time he understands that stupid saying about your heart being in your throat, because he can’t swallow around the sudden thudding of his pulse.

“Jeff. I’ll be there,” Richie says, deadly calm over the noise on his end. “I’ll—” And the phone goes dead. Jeff’s hand hurts, and when he tries to call back, fingers slipping through the blood, there’s only Mike’s surly recorded message, saying he’ll call Jeff back when he gets the chance, but not to hold his breath.

“I promise,” Jeff says to the silence, choking on the words. “Mike, I promise, I’ll—I’ll be here, okay? I’ll be here.” Don’t leave me, he doesn’t say, and hangs up before that spills out, too.

 ***

Of course they’d had a plan for the zombie apocalypse. Multiple plans, even.

Back when Jeff had been on a team he didn’t hate and had teammates who actually had shit to celebrate, they went out and hooked up, most nights. But sometimes they stayed in and watched movies. If it was a zombie flick, they’d chirp each other about who’d go undead first, who’d survive the longest. Jeff figured everyone did that—it was a natural response to undead cinema, to watch the assholes and idiots get mowed down and think, I could do better than that.

 _Remember the plan_ —he remembers plenty of fucking dumb, drunken plans. They’d talked about stupid shit like rescuing harems of grateful hotties, securing a stronghold fortress up in Canada on Lake Toews or something, living off the goddamned land and skating on the frozen lake with razor sticks, taking out zombies. Jeff had gotten Mike a book on how to home-brew beer for his birthday, because what's the end of the world without beer? Mike bought Jeff a goddamned bike for Christmas—“You fucking moron, rollerblades are a death trap, what if you get stuck somewhere you can’t fucking skate? A bike’s the way to go, Cartsy.”

He’s not thinking now about what he remembers from those stupid movies, that goddamned Left 4 Dead game. Richie’s coming. Richie promised, Richie _has_ to be fine, so Jeff has to be fine, too. He can’t just lie in his cereal on the floor and cry like a pussy; he has to get up and keep going.

A reservoir and fucking self-sustaining garden is definitely out, but Jeff can stockpile some water, find the box that has all his camping gear and water purification shit. He’d brought the bike with him to Columbus, but he’s not sure he could ride it with his foot like this anyway. Besides, where he would go? He could stand to stock up on food, and he’s pretty sure he could take out a single zombie if it came down to it, but if there’s more than one, well.

He remembers the plans, but none of them had involved him being alone.

He spends the night drinking coffee by the potful and checking all the locks, jumping every time there’s a sound, and calling his family while he’s still got the service. It’s cold up there, and apparently the plague’s spreading slower, so that’s something. That marginally limits the shit Jeff has to panic about right now. He’ll be fine, he promises, and doesn’t mention Mike. He printed out lists and lists of edible plants and feels like an idiot the next morning, in the cold light of day, looking at the creased, ink-smudged pages. How the fuck is this going to help?

He’s making a half-assed attempt to board up his windows from the inside with one bad foot and one bad hand when he hears cars for the first time that morning. His first thought is that he’s about to be fucking looted, but when the three Suburbans pull up in his cul-de-sac, he recognizes the faces in the windows, and opens his door.

Sweet shitting Christ. If there’s something Jeff could have died happily without ever seeing, it’s Patrick Kane with a shotgun, leaning out the passenger window and waving at him with it. Jeff recoils.

“Sweet, you’re not dead. We’re going to Canada,” Kane hollers at him. He’s making way too much noise. Tazer, in the driver’s seat, seems to agree, if his scowl is anything to go by. Jeff sighs and shuffles outside close enough to be heard without shouting.

“Good for you,” Jeff grits out, leaning against his crutch and feeling sick to his stomach. Tazer rolls his eyes and leans across Kane.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he commands, and Jeff fights the urge to stick out his tongue and stomp his one good foot. “Get in, we’re not leaving you out here. The city isn’t…” He trails off, then grimaces. “It’s bad, back there. We need to get north.”

Well, that’s great. Great. But Jeff’s not leaving, so they’re just going to have to deal with it.

“No,” Jeff says shortly, and turns back towards the door, but he’s slow and tired, and Kane has already leapt out of the car, and he’s as obnoxiously wily here as he is on the ice, getting his foot in before Jeff can slam the door shut.

“C’mon, man, we promised Nash we’d get you before we had to, you know.” He gestures with the gun and grimaces, glancing down to the side.

“Fuck, really?” Jeff says feelingly, because, well, he’d never really been close with, or even liked the guy, maybe possibly projected a little of his trade misery on him, but he’d never wanted the dude to be bitten, or go down afterwards at the hands of fucking Kaner. Insult to injury, after that loss to the Hawks the other night. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. Look, man, it was one of his dying wishes,” Kane says seriously—how can anyone _say_ that seriously? But he does. “So you’re coming.”

And he’s small, but he has a determined glint in his eyes, and it’s surprisingly hard to get free of his grip as he tugs Jeff towards the car. Jeff digs his heels in as best he can and thinks about using his crutch to beat Kane off, but they’re already being loud, and it won’t be long before anything hungry and undead in the area hears something and comes to investigate.

“Dammit, I _can’t_. Richie’s coming, he’ll be here,” Jeff blurts out, and then bites his lip so hard it hurts, a lot, and fuck, that stupid fucker is looking at him now with pity in his dumb blue eyes. “I have to be here when he gets here,” he finishes, refusing to let his voice wobble.

“Dude,” Patrick says gently, and if he weren’t holding a shotgun, Jeff would fucking deck him. The other guys are getting out of the car and Jeff can’t fucking deal with this right now. “Cali’s a long way off, and the news from the West Coast—it doesn’t sound good, you know? He wouldn’t want you to die here.”

“Yeah, well, he’s _coming_ , and I’m going to fucking be here when he does,” Jeff yells, and that was dumb, he knows it, he knows he’s being dumb, but he knocks at Kaner with the crutch until he can hobble back inside, leaning against the wall and breathing hard, pressing his hands against his eyes.

He hears doors open and close, and some more yelling outside – well, at least he’s not the only dumb one—and then Toews and Sharpy, and a bunch of other Canadians are muscling their way inside Jeff’s house and making dubious eyes at Jeff’s extremely clever and sturdy improvised bookshelf barriers against the windows.

“Seriously? Those will fall over, you know that, right?” Tazer says, and Jeff scowls.

“Shut up, Jonny,” he spits out, and scrubs at his face, leaning heavily against his axe.

“Your _hand_ ,” Kaner says suddenly, and Jeff flaps the shoddy bandage at him without looking up.

“Oh, fuck off, it’s just a cut, I didn’t—I haven’t even seen one yet.” This still could be some War of the Worlds shit or whatever, Jeff remembers hearing about that in high school and thinking it was fucking baller, best prank of all time. For all he knows, this could be like that. One massive, well-organized prank.

But he remembers Mike’s voice, and the sounds on the other side of the phone, where he was, and he knows, deep down, somewhere in his gut, that this isn’t a prank. This isn’t a joke.

“Let me see it,” Tazer commands, and Jeff just—he’s too tired, so he just lets the fucknut take his hand. The cut is seeping blood still, aching and sluggish, and Tazer pokes at it—“Ow,” Jeff protests numbly—then he’s nodding at the other guys, like he’s some kind of zombie expert. Maybe he kind of is, by now. Jeff wonders what happened with Nash, then pointedly shoves the thought from his head.

“He’s clean,” Tazer declares, and lets him go.

“Told you,” Jeff mutters, and stomps off to collapse on the couch, watching more of the Hawks and a few Jackets invading his home.

“We’ll wait with you,” Tazer says, standing over him, and for a second the blankness of his face breaks and someone startlingly sympathetic and soft looks back at him. The moment passes quickly, and Tazer starts directing the guys to move the remaining furniture against the door and bring the supplies in. “You still got water?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Groundwater pump, yeah,” Jeff says, and tries not to show how stupidly grateful and also stupidly and irrationally annoyed he feels right now.

“It’s not a bad place to hole up, not too many windows, and we can scavenge the neighborhood for supplies for the trip,” Jonny says thoughtfully. “But you know we can’t wait forever.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Jeff says, bristling, and then Kane interrupts, “Head’s up, we got a shamble of them coming our way.”

“A _horde_ ,” Tazer corrects, rolling his eyes, and gets to his feet, picking up his—Jeff squints. Is that a fucking scythe? Jesus Christ. “Put the gun down, Pat, we’ve made enough noise already.”

Jeff’s basically useless, so he stands at the door as the team takes orders and fans out around the house.

The first zombie he sees himself, in person, is his neighbor’s daughter, a college co-ed he’d seen sunbathing. She’s in Juicy sweatpants now, and she looks—fine, she looks _fine_ from a distance, just like she always has: great tits, long legs. But she’s making the weirdest fucking noise, a low, hungry moan. Jeff has to throw up quietly in the bushes next to his front door as Jonny efficiently decapitates her.

Her father’s the next, coming around the corner, and he looks way worse, a ragged bandage around his arm and his starched shirt stained black. His mouth is hanging loose, snapping, and Sharpy comes up and trips him with a shovel, and Jonny makes quick work of him, too.

Jeff goes back inside and someone hands him a bottle of water and, almost comfortingly, calls him a fucking pussy.

“Nut up or shut up, Carts,” they say, rubbing his shoulder for a moment, then getting back up to check on the situation in the backyard.

Slowly, the sound of moans fades, then stops completely. People start drifting back inside and Tazer starts commanding a strip-down to check for bites. It’s weirdly familiar, listening to the run-down, the suggestions for more efficient kills.

“Twenty-nine, now,” Kaner brags, and Tazer shrugs and grins at him, all teeth. “Aw, don’t even—”

“Thirty-three,” he says smugly, and Jeff stares in disbelief at the two of them. Duncs catches the expression on Jeff’s face and shrugs at him.

“I know. Fucks are acting like they’re in Lord of the goddamned Rings,” and that’s funny enough, picturing Kaner as a dwarf and Tazer as a pansy-ass elf, that Jeff starts laughing a little, high and hysterical. Duncs lets him for a moment, then punches him hard enough in the shoulder that he stops.

“It seems dumb,” he says finally, once Jeff’s calmed down. “But they have to get through somehow. Whatever works, you know?” Then he gets up to help Seabrook with fixing the mess Jeff had made of the windows.

Jeff feels, not for the first time since he got to this fucking state, like a total afterthought.

“Leave the bodies there, we’re not staying long,” he hears Sharpy suggest, and Jeff just can’t. He makes his thumping, lopsided way to the kitchen and stands there a moment, holding onto the counter and breathing. He has to get through this. He promised. Richie’s coming. He can deal.

Anyway. Jeff may be a fucking gimp, but he can make food.

As he starts fucking around with the stove and a giant pot of water and spaghetti, listening to the chirping and hammers echo around his house, he realizes this, _this_ is, sadly, the most useful that he’s felt since he moved to Ohio.

That’s something, he guesses, and while he waits for the water to boil, he tries Richie’s number again.

“Leave a message and I’ll maybe get back to you,” Richie tells him tonelessly. “But don’t hold your breath.”

“Fucking holed up with the goddamned Hawks,” Jeff tells him, and dumps the noodles in. “Get here soon, asshole.” He breathes a few moments, thinking of all the other things roiling in his head, thudding like a pulse in his throat, then says hoarsely, “Just…get here soon, okay?”

***

A few days later, Jeff’s going batshit crazy. He knows he has to be grateful, and he _is_ , okay, but if he has to watch Kaner and Tazer much longer—he’s going to go fucking insane.

The first time he’d caught them, he’d stumbled back, shocked. They were just standing in the kitchen, early dawn and the house quiet, candles flickering on the table. And the thing is, Jeff thinks he could have handled it if it’d been some frantic, adrenaline-fueled fuck. But it’s not. It’s slow and – Jeff would kick himself in his own balls if he could for thinking the word sweet, but that’s what it is.

Jonny kisses Patrick carefully, one hand on his face, holding him there, and Patrick’s limp in his arms, eyes closed and making soft contented noises, and Jeff realizes like a punch to the gut that he’s not annoyed, or disgusted, or anything acceptable like that – he’s _jealous_.

He’d been jealous earlier, sure, seeing everyone with their fucking teammates, their partners, working together easily and battling back the goddamned dark together while Jeff hobbles around in his own fucking house like a grumpy troll, or something. But this feels different, aching and sharp, and he doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s just been too long since he last got laid, he concludes, and shuffles backwards, trying not to make more noise than he already had. Jonny’s back stiffens a little, but then he’s relaxed again, pulling Pat closer, and Jeff gets the fuck out of there.

He jerks off that night trying to think of all his favorite porn, the stuff he can’t access now that the fucking Internet’s gone. When that doesn’t work, he tries the best fucks he’s had. He scrolls through the memories—Richie and those identical twins in Florida, god, blonde and slim and stacked, how big Richie’s hands had looked on his girl as he hoisted her up the wall—against a fucking _wall_ —and how fucking tight Jeff’s girl had felt on his cock as she rode him.

It was like watching porn while living it at the same time, and Jeff had almost blacked out, he’d come so hard, god, it was good, and Richie had looked over at him just as Jeff lost it, his eyes dark, and—

Fuck.

Jeff lies in his bed, panting and running his hand through the mess on his stomach, staring at his ceiling and listening to the night look-outs switching shifts in the hallway. He should go to sleep—he’s on duty next, watching the windows upstairs, and Tazer’s got some bullshit regimen to keep them all rested and alert, or whatever, but all he can think of is Richie, and the shit he’d never said to him, not even after the trade. _I miss you. Everything’s awful without you. I wouldn’t even fucking mind Ohio if you were here, I wouldn’t even care about the world ending, I_ —

Too much. He punches the pillow and forces his eyes closed.

***

It’s been a week, and the stupid cut on Jeff’s hand is festering —well, of course it is. That’s his fucking life in a nutshell. It’s not as bad as two broken feet, but a broken foot and an infected hand in the midst of the zombie apocalypse isn’t exactly a goddamned delight.

He’s a little feverish and a lot cranky—he’s been demoted even from look-out to straight-up kitchen duty. He’s considered burning all the food out of spite, but he knows as well as anyone that the guys have to keep their strength up, so. He cooks and thinks dark, dark thoughts when Sharpy brings him back an apron from one of their looting trips. But it is kind of funny, so he puts it on, because that’s something else he can do.

Everyone’s getting restless. They’ve been scavenging a serious amount of gas from the abandoned cars and stations nearby, and have more non-perishables than Jeff thinks will fit in the cars, and even some antibiotics and medical supplies for the trip north. It’s—he knows they can’t wait much longer, and everyone’s watching him like a – well, like fucking hawks.

Jeff’s managed to hear from his mom again, even though service is spotty—apparently the Mounties have organized some crazy efficient offensive, so that’s good. But he still hasn’t—he hasn’t heard from Mike.

He must have dropped his cell, or something, he tells Patrick one morning, delirious and sweating, and Patrick just nods and makes him drink another glass of Gatorade. But Mike’s fine. _Jeff’s_ fine. Sweat the fever out.

“I never got to—” he manages to get out, one night, while the look-outs are standing their posts and the rest of them are getting cautiously buzzed on horrible scavenged vodka. Mandatory relaxation time, penned in by Tazer on his damned spreadsheet. “I—you know?”

Duncs knocks against his shoulder and smiles grimly. “Never told him?” He’s holding Seabrook’s hand, and sick and a little buzzed, Jeff can admit that he’s so fucking jealous and lonely and worried that his teeth ache, along with his fucking hand and foot.

“Not—not like that,” Jeff says lamely, because—Mike has to know Jeff loves him, even if neither of them had ever said it. Or even, on Jeff’s part, _thought_ it, until recently. They’d been Skyping and texting every day, before this. Before Skype stopped working, before the Internet went down. Fucking Comcast.

“It’s the end of the world, man, you can say it if you want to,” Seabs murmurs, and Jeff thinks, idly, about how good it would feel to just punch every single person in the room right now.

Kaner’s cradled between Jonny’s thighs on the sofa, and they’re murmuring to each other, trading sips from the same glass, probably talking about who has the higher kill count now. It’s horrifically cute, in the kind of way that actually makes Jeff want to throw up. It sucks. It’s horrible and Jeff wouldn’t have even realized he wanted that for himself, wanted it bone-deep and with basically everything he’s got, until he’d seen them like this, here.

He wants that with Richie, he wanted that, he—he thinks he’s always wanted that. Not the kill count, fuck no, that’s fucked up beyond coming out as a gay hockey player. But he wants Richie here, leaning against him, making fun of the lovebirds with him, warm and solid against his side. He wants Richie in his bed at night, snoring, impossibly familiar, and wants everything he’d never let himself think about, those nights out with the Flyers.

Of course he’d have his big gay revelation about his former teammate, in Columbus, during the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse, with Richie—not here yet. On the way. That is the life of Jeff fucking Carter, as fucked up and pathetic as humanly possible.

At least he doesn’t still have to make nice for the Columbus press, he thinks, and chokes out a laugh until Duncs sighs and hands over the bottle. Why not, it’s not like Jeff’s good for anything but cooking right now. He drinks, and lets Seabs pat his foot and chirp soothingly at him, and tries to stop thinking. Richie always says he thinks too much.

Just—Jeff knows this fucking misfit group of Jackets and Hawks, they’re leaving soon. Sharpy has heard from his wife and kids, and they’re holed up somewhere secure, but he wants to get to them. Everyone wants to get to the people they love, the ones that haven’t already made it to Canada, to make sure they’re safe. Jeff _gets_ it.

He just doesn’t get why they’re _staying_. It’s not horrible, here, the zombies are thin on the ground – more drawn towards the city, still, the fires burning and the remaining masses of trapped people—but it’s not where anyone wants to be. It’s fucking Ohio.

Jeff’s told them over and over that he’s not going to leave—and who knew the end of civilization as they knew it came with so much annoying goddamned irony?—but they’re still here.

So he’s just trying his damnedest to get well enough that they’ll feel okay leaving him here. Because Jeff’s not. Not leaving. Leaving is giving up, and he’s not doing that, because if he does that, he might as well die here of septicemia anyway.

At the end of the night he calls Richie again, so drunk he’s almost got the spins with it, and the cadence of Richie’s voice is so familiar that Jeff feels it beating in his chest. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“I’m holding it, Mike,” Jeff tells him miserably. “I won’t stop, I’ll—fuck. Fuck, Richie, I fucking love you, man, you know that, right? I never—I never told you, but you know that. I—want you so goddamned bad.” Want you here, he’d meant to say, but whatever, it’s the end of the world. “Keep thinking about you. Always thinking about you. Always was, with the girls. You’re so good.”

He’s rubbing himself through his sweats now, eyes closed. “Remember Vancouver? Yeah, when you told me what to do. God, Richie.”

They’d gotten girls, both of them, but Jeff had way too much liquor, for once, couldn’t get himself _there_ , and it could have been an embarrassing disaster except Richie had gotten his girl off, gotten off himself, and then rolled over, told Jeff in a rough, hoarse voice, “I got you, Cartsy.”

He’d told him how to touch her, where to put his mouth, harder, faster, god, Carts, she loves it, she’s so hot right now for you, keep going. And somehow Jeff had come after all, despite the whiskey dick. Just like now, remembering it, rubbing his heel against his cock and whining, high and desperate.

“Mike.” Jeff tries to breathe, and lets his head fall back, running his bad hand through the slickness on his thighs, dimly aware that he’ll regret that tomorrow when he changes the bandages. Right now, though it’s just the right amount of rough, enough not-his-normal hand that it could be—

His dick twitches, and Jeff groans. “Just, Mike. I—where are you?”

He manages to fumble the ‘end call’ button and lies there, trying not to feel the tears trickle out from beneath his closed lashes.

***

“And I thought Crosby was whiny,” Kane says the next day, and shoves more pills at him. They helped out a family, a doctor and her twins, a few days back, and got a bunch of bog-standard antibiotics in return. Jeff thinks this is probably it. This is where he takes the antibiotics they’re willing to spare from the group’s stash and make a last stand. “Carts, just come with us. Mike’s—he could be up north already.”

“He said he was coming,” Jeff says, and beats back the nausea. The drugs are helping, he knows, his fever’s already down and the creepy red web of infection on his arm has faded, but fuck if they don’t make him feel like he might be a zombie already himself. He’s thrown up so many canned beans, it’s a goddamned disgrace. A waste of horrible food. “I’m not going, Kaner, would you if it was—” Jeff snaps his mouth shut. It’s too much, too much to even think about when he’s mostly lucid and entirely sober.

Kane goes even greener than the night they’d lanced Jeff’s hand, and says, quietly, “Dammit, Carter.” He leaves him to sit and look out the window again, at the smoky sky to the west.

***

It’s fucking quiet—Jeff’s still not used to the silence of a house without power, even if there’s still people moving around in it. It feels weird, like being in the wrong century. He’s just sitting there, sharpening his axe again, just in case, for lack of anything better to do, when hears something he hasn’t in a while: a car. A _different_ car. All the guys are in for the evening, it shouldn’t—he’s on his feet before he realizes it.

A second later there’s someone pounding at the front door, hollering his name. And there’s barking, he hears _barking_. Jeff makes his way down the stairs, and it’s like a dream, pushing through everyone as he makes his way over and undoes the latches.

“Mike,” he croaks, and then he’s engulfed in arms and scruff and sweat, and he just shakes, clinging. This has to be real. He couldn’t dream up Mike smelling like this, stale and rank, and Arnold at their feet, howling joyfully until Jeff frees a hand to let him lick it.

“Jesus, Jeff, Jesus,” Mike’s saying into his neck, squeezing the fucking life out of him, and then he takes Jeff’s other hand, the bandaged one, and looks at Jeff like—like he’s dying, all the blood draining out of his face and leaving him pale and horrified.

“No!” Jeff says hurriedly, “No, it’s just, I fell, it was stupid, but it’s not—”

And then Mike kisses him, right in front of everyone, God and whatever mishmash of hockey teams they’ve got now, and maybe even the zombies, and Jeff just _doesn’t care_. It tastes gross, and it’s too hard, all teeth, and Jeff’s pretty sure he’s making pathetic noises against Mike’s mouth right now, undignified and desperate. He doesn’t _care_.

“I got your messages,” Mike says, pulling back enough to speak. People are pushing past them to get inside who look vaguely familiar—is that fucking _Crosby_?—but Jeff can’t care about anything else right now.

“And you didn’t _call back_ —” Jeff starts, actually really fucking indignant, but Mike cuts him off.

“I never got enough signal, but… I knew, Jeff. I know,” he says simply, and Jeff just closes his eyes and lets go, his head falling down. Mike puts his hand on his neck, holding him against his shoulder, and they should go upstairs, definitely, or maybe pull apart long enough to take in the new situation, make a new plan, but for now, this. This is good.

“I expected a better show than this. That’s a shitty declaration of love,” he hears someone say, amused, and there might actually be some clapping going on and a bottle of champagne being popped nearby. Jeff really hates hockey players.

“Fuck you,” Jeff says, almost drunk with how little he cares about anything at all besides Mike’s shoulder, warm beneath his cheek, and Arnold weaving between their legs. He thinks of a thousand miles, and a promise, and how he can finally, finally breathe again. “Fuck you, it’s perfect.”

“I told you. I told you I’d be here,” Mike says, just low enough that Jeff knows only he can hear it, and he says, choked and wavering, “Yeah. Yeah, Mike. I knew.”

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY GO NORTH TOGETHER WITH EVERYONE ELSE IN A GIANT SQUABBLING CARAVAN OF BADASS, RESCUING FOLKS AS THEY GO, AND FORM A HOCKEY PLAYER COMMUNE IN CANADA. LIKE Y'DO.
> 
> THE END

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [& that necessary by Novembersmith [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/622467) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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